


for the time

by youngerdrgrey



Category: Queen Sugar (TV)
Genre: F/M, post-season two, we all know Jacob wants Charley bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:49:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13434111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngerdrgrey/pseuds/youngerdrgrey
Summary: A few months in to their newfound partnership, Jacob asks Charley a question.note:Jacob can still choke, but I mean, I had to write this.





	for the time

**Author's Note:**

> in 1x10, Jacob showed Charley around the mill, and I'm a sucker for calling back to old moments.

 

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Jacob pitches forward in his seat so often his back must ache. The muscles around his spine screaming out, but he would much rather strain than keep his distance from Charley. If it weren’t for the table between them, he’d practically be at her knees.

“So,” his neck cranes out while he shuffles the ice in his glass, “I made you a promise a while back.”

He tends to rely on cyclical conversation, as if bringing up their brief shared history will inspire some warmth in her. The only heat here is the burn in her throat from the whiskey.

Still, she lifts a brow as she settles her glass down on the table. “You did?”

He nods. His grip on his cup eases so he can settle his hands out and open against his knees. “When we first met, I said that you’d talk to who you’re grinding with more than your own mother.”

Back when he first gave her a tour of his mill, before she knew their family history and understood the games he and his clan liked to play.

Her brow lowers back to neutral. “Well, we’re not close.” Haven’t been for years, and probably never will be. Jacob waits for more with bated breath. “The way she operates has never made all that much sense to me. So, we keep things pretty casual, she and I.”

His hands pitch forward off his knees. They stop short before they reach her. Find his glass again instead. “You don’t seem the type for casual, Charley.”

She chuckles. “I’m not.” She couldn’t do casual to save her life, even if Remy might argue against that.

Jacob clicks his tongue. “And yet, you let her back in. She helped you close the deal with my cousin. The, uh, outcast of the family.”

Charley’s lips thin out. “The black sheep, as he says.”

Jacob bristles. “That’s poor taste, especially saying it to you.”

He can shove that protective bullshit down his throat. Her chest puffs around the words. “I’d rather people say it out right. Cut the bullshit.” It’s not necessarily an order, but he nearly slips clean off his seat like it is one.

His eyes, open and yearning, bloodshot and exaggerated with that so-called intoxication. “When are you gonna give me a chance, Charley? How long do I have to atone for the sins of my family?”

She finds herself pitching forward just the same. “Do you actually see them as sins, or just missteps?”

He blinks that right down. “A necessary evil’s a sin just the same.”

“Necessary?” she repeats.

“For the time,” he says.

She shakes her head, grabs her drink, and downs it. He holds stiff, even as his face slackens with the shift in her attention. She sets her glass back down.

“Good night, Jacob.”

She heads for the door, and he waits to call out to her.

“How long?”

She stalls herself because that hesitance will speak more to him than any answer could. Let him spend the rest of the night processing what her silence meant, wondering how her face had looked while she stood there.

“For the time.”

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**Author's Note:**

> is it fair that Charley (Dawn Lyen) has chemistry with everyone? can y'all forgive me for writing a Jacob scene?


End file.
